THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606280247
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: Mason Peters
LENGTH: 50 lines
IN THE Hildy Johnson school of ``Front Page'' journalism, panting reporters holler ``Get Me Rewrite!'' and a Pulitzer-Prize winning news story flows into print under blaring black headlines.
But in the real world, reporters talk to ordinary people doing what they hope are extraordinary things, and the journalists' stories go on local fronts and sports and feature sections and what are known as community tabloids.
It was 10 years ago that the first issue of ``The Coast'' was produced to give North Carolina readers a close look at their neighborhoods and their neighbors.
In the summer, the neighborhoods are teeming with people as visitors flock in by the tens of thousands. In the winter, the Outer Banks is peaceful and lonely, limited mostly to year-round residents.
It takes special effort to provide news that is wanted by such diverse readers.
But top editors a decade ago decided it could be done.
One of the key players in the creation of the Coast was Richard Barry, then publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star. He had a lot of time to read his newspaper because he was laid up with a broken bone at his home in Point Harbor, N.C. Point Harbor is at the confluence of Albemarle Sound, the North River, Currituck Sound, and Kitty Hawk Bay - an epicenter of things to come.
Barry was one of the first to realize the enormous growth that was surely coming to the Outer Banks and northeastern North Carolina by the end of this century.
And by then, in the Pilot editorial department in Norfolk, more editors were talking about publishing a special North Carolina tab section. It would be different. It would adopt to seasonal appeal, as well as target a much wider range of readers. And it would allow North Carolina businesses to inexpensively reach a targeted readership.
``Let's call it `The Carolina Coast,' '' said then-Deputy Managing Editor Kay McGraw.
McGraw, now director of Human Resources for The Virginian-Pilot, rounded up department heads who would have to work out an immensely complicated production plan that would distribute the paper to northeastern readers.
Not long after that, Sandra Rowe, executive editor of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, walked into the news room with a message:
``The Carolina Coast tab will run with the Sunday North Carolina edition,'' said Rowe.
It still does.
KEYWORDS: 10TH ANNIVERSARY by CNB